The Silver Spoon
Do we have a quintessential cookbook? Many would point, with good reason, to Delia Smith's Big Black Book a copy of which is one of the handiest things to have in the kitchen. Some people might try to make a case for Nigella Lawson's How to Cook, but really that's a book so riddled with unnecessary use of Italian and French, a pointless passion for using any adverb but the right one, and convoluted, confusing, sentences, that it is to all intents and purposes useless.
There is no getting away from the fact though that Delia's opus is a bit dull to look at. Practical yes, but not inspirational. The Italians, bless their clotted arteries, do things differently. For the past fifty years one cookbook has reigned supreme, appearing on every kitchen shelf and on many a wedding list. The Silver Spoon is a cook's bible but, interestingly and uniquely, it was not written by one person. In fact, the book was commissioned by Domus, the legendary design and architectural magazine, which asked cookery experts to trawl Italy's gastronomic legacy and bring back hundreds of traditional recipes. Not only did they bring the recipes of various areas to the attention of all Italians, they also preserved recipes in danger of being lost forever. It was both a work of cookery and a work of historical importance.
This is the first time the book has been translated out of the original Italian and so its wonders are available to a far wider audience. As you might expect it is elegantly laid out as well as practical – colour coded pages make it easy to find your way around – and specially commissioned photographs and artwork make it a pleasure to browse when away from the kitchen, too.
If you're looking for an Italian cookbook that is easy to use and, with a selection of over 2000 recipes, a cookbook that won't get relegated to a back shelf, then The Silver Spoon has to be the one to seek out.
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The Diabetic Cookbook - Azmina Govindi
Most of us know a diabetic, it's more common than you might think. Stars like Sharon Stone and Haile Berrie have it, as did John Paul II. For a long time diabetics felt condemned to a life of dull, safe, food but as this book shows. that needn't be the case. Azmina Govindi is an author and nutritional consultant and she creates recipes that anyone would be delighted to eat, not just diabetics.
She uses the Glycaemic index on each recipe, making this a useful book for anyone on a healthy eating regime, and opens with an informed, and informative, section on diet and diabetes. Each recipe has its own nutritional information, too. But it's the recipes themselves that will really get the taste buds going with their imagination and globe-trotting reach. Garlic soy ribs with sweet potatoes, for example, or Moroccan chicken with squash and chickpea. Plus she shows that desserts can still work, even without sugar. This book is produced by Good Housekeeping, a virtual guarantee of a book that deserves a place on the shelves of anyone, diabetic or not.
